> So start an interesting thread on poetry, then. The
> last one was "reviewing", and it was pretty good but
> the change of mail server interrrupted and killed it.

Oddly enough I did notice. And it wasn't the change of mail server killed
it.

Here's a review from the net-based 'Spike' magazine of the Ian Sinclair
Conductors of Chaos anthology. I'm puting it up because the interest seems
that of a viewpoint that is opposed to the Chaos baton-wavers but not from
the usual neo-conservative angle: the 'mainstream' gets short shrift too. I
don't necessarily endorse the viewpoint, just thought it might be worth
comment:


Iain Sinclair: Conductors of Chaos


      Conduct Unbecoming
      Chris Mitchell has a problem with Conductors of Chaos,
      the poetry anthology from Picador edited by Iain Sinclair

      Got an opinion or a question about this article?
      Come and talk about it in the spike forum
      email Chris at [log in to unmask]


      Poetry, far more than fiction, is a difficult one to discuss. One
reader's
      revulsion is another's revelation. So at first sight I thought
Conductors
      of Chaos would be right up SPIKE's alley (as it were) due to Picador
      billing it as the collection which Faber & Faber dare not publish.
Cool! I
      thought. Instead of the cosy banality of Wendy Cope or the
unfathomable
      tediousness of Seamus Heaney, here comes something which restores
poetry
      as a dangerous, subversive, underground force, breaking from the
      mainstream, doing it for the kids, saying something...
      Wrong.
      It cannot be denied that the majority of the thirty-plus poets
featured in
      Conductors of Chaos have broken from the mainstream, but to such an
extent
      that "poetry" seems to be something of a dubious label. It was that
crusty
      old modernist T.S. Eliot who asserted that for a poet to successfully
      employ vers libre, they must first be fully conversant with the
discipline
      and structure of "traditional" poetry. The truth of his dictum is
      glaringly apparent here: these poets have certainly been libres with
their
      vers, and the result is nearly 500 pages of pure frustration. The
attempt
      to be avant-garde abounds; clarity is avoided like the crabs. It
appears
      to be a disease of the late twentieth century that artists, in
whatever
      medium, seem to continually equate obscurity with profundity. Editor
Iain
      Sinclair confirms as much when he states " if these things are
difficult,
      they have earned that right. You don't need to read them, just feel
the
      sticky heat creep up through your fingers." Whether Sinclair is
referring
      to the pleasure of warming yourself over a burning copy of this
anthology
      remains unclear; but from the rest of his introduction, it is obvious
that
      we are in the territory of those Who Take Themselves Very Seriously.
      Sinclair declares " Why should they be easy?...If it comes too
sweetly,
      somebody is trying to sell you something." This is perhaps the most
tired,
      overused rhetoric in the history of writing. Sinclair is basically
stating
      that if it's popular, then it's trash and if it's obscure it must a
priori
      be worthwhile. Sinclair's bravado is all the more laughable
considering
      that Conductors of Chaos is a blatant bid for collective commercial
      success via Picador's publishing power. These people are trying to
sell us
      their subjectivity and simultaneously pretend that they remain aloof
from
      the vagaries of the market.
      This "holier-than-thou" judgemental attitude pervades much of the work
      included here. Most of the writers featured write autobiographically
in
      the first person, presuming that their lives and their observations
are of
      sufficient interest to sustain a poem. This is always the most
dangerous
      assertion in any form of writing. It takes an incredible amount of
skill
      to transform the intimately subjective into something which can be
      empathised with. Much of the writing in Conductors of Chaos merely
      reinforces rather than rejects the prejudice that poetry is the
      preoccupation of over-privileged self-obsessed bores. Take, for
example,
      this horribly self righteous and clumsy section from Grace Lake's "on
      challenges, positive attitudes and 'les peintres cubistes'" (the title
      alone being just cause to summon the Pretension Police):
        & here are too many words which tend to order
        the rights and wrongs of feeling sorry for someone or other
        who turned out to be hidebound by racist and economic intelligence
        theories.

      Similarly, Jeremy Reed's "The Deconstruction Co." tries to be
      self-glamourising and ironic but sounds merely self-pitying and
envious:
        "...You seem to have no friends
        in publishing, and not to be a parasite,
        and this will never do. You're exclusive
        and have too much mystique, what do you do,
        to write such censored off-beat books
        that have reviewers chop off your hands and feet,
        and yes, we're told you wear leopardskin boots
        and that's outrageous..."

      If that weren't enough, there is also the excruciatingly Gandalfesque
      pastoral whimsy of John James' "Song (after Friedrich and Goethe)."
        on Pen y Fan a
        thousand times I stand
        reclining on my staff
        & gazing down the valley

      I could go on, but I'll spare you. To term the poetry collected in
      Conductors of Chaos as "diverse, eclectic and electrifying" is simply
      wrong. There is little here that has any immediacy, only scatterings
of
      words across the page which arrogantly demand to be diciphered. Life
is
      short. Perhaps the failure of Conductors Of Chaos is best embodied by
      Stewart Home's work, the self-styled Neoist and plagarist
extrordinaire.
      He prefaces his own selection by stating "Our most pressing task is to
      bury this 'culture' of mediocrity because, like the still-born 'New
      Poetry', it is already dead." Stirring words which are followed by
some of
      the most mediocre poetry in the whole collection.
      There are literally a couple of saving graces. Barry McSweeney employs
      that greatest of taboos, humour, in "Hellhound Memos," a random
travelogue
      interspersed with different characters and voices to great effect:
        ...I'm the only jackpot chancer on the job, estate joy-rider
        extrordinaire. Bored in the listless
        summer, when the boys in blue are in Marbella on the piss
        I waft in or rev as is my nature, contrary to
        council or ecclesiastical denial, and open up these
        stolen microwaves. I turn them on and breathe
        I don't care what the damage is. Or the waste.
        I enjoy the flames. I can scorch a line, a beautiful
        blue and true line, through the hull of your lives...
        ...I don't erect headstones, Hosanna those
        sky-blue heaven in the fairy tales. I deliver.
        Into a permanent darkness for the rest of your days.
        I come down like slate-grey rain. That's all. No God available."
      Significantly, Aaron Williamson's selection is the last to appear in
      Conductors Of Chaos. His darkly evocative work exploits an intimacy
with
      language which is made all the more acute by his profound deafness.
The
      sheer sound of the syllables read from the page produces a whole
labyrinth
      of associations and allusions. Williamson's work is quite literally
      out-of-body - there is no authorial 'I', only a howling, shrieking
voice,
      conjuring up visions of Beckett's Not I, where only a mouth is visible
on
      a blacked out stage. Williamson's work is the apotheosis of radical
poetry
      - it explores classic forms in new directions, being different enough
to
      create an immediate impact but deep enough to repay continual returns
to
      its pages. Williamson's experimentation has even extended to having
his
      own webpage.
      Picador would probably have produced a far better anthology if they
had
      asked for contributions from new poets, published or unpublished.
Looking
      towards the established poetry underground has proven to be no
guarantee
      of quality writing and it is a great shame that such a brave move
      commercially by a major publishing house has been rendered so
drastically
      impotent.




----- Original Message -----
From: Sheenagh Pugh <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2000 6:10 PM
Subject: re foxes


> David Bircumshaw:
>
> "Excuse me, is this a poetry discussion list?
>
> Whoops, sorry, wrong room"
>
> So start an interesting thread on poetry, then. The
> last one was "reviewing", and it was pretty good but
> the change of mail server interrrupted and killed it.
> Ever since then, things have gone dead. I'd rather
> read something-interesting-but-non-poetry than skim
> through the digest and hit the delete button again.
>
>
> =====
> Sheenagh Pugh
> http://www.geocities.com/sheenaghpugh
>
> __________________________________________________
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